Reincarnation Themes in Don Whitaker’s CD Gnarled Bones

There are several songs in Don Whitaker’s CD, Gnarled Bones, which deal with Reincarnation themes. As the lyricist of all the songs on the CD, I must admit I rarely miss a chance to weave Reincarnation references into my lyrics. But three songs in particular deal with Reincarnation directly.

Gnarled Bones, for which the album is named, is a song about a man who knows for certain he has not met his soul mate in this life, but has memories of her from prior lives. He catches a glimpse of her in a sales clerk’s eye or the way a waitress’ wrist tilts. He can’t completely enunciate the sadness this memory of her causes, but he knows he carried a sadness in his gut all his life, like gnarled bones.

There’s no way for him to resolve this sadness, as this is not a life where he was meant to be with her. Perhaps this is how he chose to refine his soul in this present life – by learning how to live with such an emptiness. And in the song’s chorus, he concludes he’s ‘a better man for the journey.’

Variations On Emily, a song where I used lines from Emily Dickinson’s public domain pieces, then answer with lines of my own. Concerning Reincarnation, I’ve never come across any documents where Emily discussed her own belief in it, but I’ve often contemplated her last written sentences from her death bed, a short note to relatives: “Little cousins, Called Back.” She also instructed the words “Called Back” be carved on her grave stone. Now where this is a favorite saying of 19th century Christians, I’ve always entertained the reincarnational hope how if one were called back, it surely means you were there to begin with, before this life.

Canterbury Meditations, This song uses the trope of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to muse about the nature of Reincarnation, how we’re all ‘rocks in the rock polisher’ of life. It follows the struggles of four of Chaucer’s characters: The Nun, The Friar, The Merchant and The Knight, including long instrumentals to give the listener spacious time to reflect upon the characters’ travails.

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Where there’s no scientific proof for Reincarnation, or for any other theology for that matter, the Ian Stevenson books come the closest so far as documenting cases of Reincarnation he directly studied. But a scientist to the end, Stevenson can’t bring himself to claim he’s proven the existence of Reincarnation, although his case studies are extremely compelling.

For any religious belief, it requires a faith on the part of the individual, rather than scientific proof, as no religion offers such proof. For myself, I came to Reincarnation through my 40 years of writing serious poetry. Those of us committed to this art, know poetry is a highly intuitive endeavor, and the more the poet disengages the conscious mind, the better the poem will flow in to the poet. Many years ago I became aware of what was flowing in often concerned the ‘circularity of the soul.’ And this led me to seek literature on Reincarnation. Since I already possessed a firm belief in poetry, it became a short journey to embrace Reincarnation.

Where I don’t recommend all individuals begin a regimen of poetry, I do believe it’s incumbent on all individuals to seek their own answers or faiths. As I wrote in a song “The Secret of Life” by one of our other artists, Joan in the Fires, if you search with a good heart, the answer will eventually pop up and shake hands with you. The answer always comes in the long, sincere search.

A tribute to the human spirit: people who quite simply danced in the face of death. During the medieval Black Death epidemics, which claimed one-third of the European population, some people responded by having huge bonfires at night, and dancing themselves into a frenzy.

Dancing in the Plague Lyrics Below. Song is available for download – Download

“We wanted to write on a time rarely covered, and often pondered the response of some people to the Black Death in the Middle Ages: they made huge bonfires at night and danced themselves into a frenzy.”

Ward Kelley

Lyricist and Owner, Wardco Studios

From the Low Tides Album

Dancing in the Plague

A tribute to the human spirit: people who quite simply danced in the face of death. During the medieval Black Death epidemics, which claimed one-third of the European population, some people responded by having huge bonfires at night, and dancing themselves into a frenzy.

Where there’s no evidence this is a true story, it certainly could be one. Xerxes slayed hundreds of thousands of Greeks during his invasion of the democracies, so it’s not a stretch to imagine a wealthy land owner making a suicidal stand against the invaders. This song has it roots in a poem I published 20 or so years ago, by the same name; I guess I felt compelled by the situation and the thoughts running through the protagonist’s mind as he stood in a small temple at night on his property, in a thunderstorm, knowing Xerxes and his murderous army waited over the next hill.

With Anastasia’s deep roots in Indiana, we wanted to write a song about the Midwestern state, and while thinking about all the images to describe Indiana – the farmlands, rural towns, basketball, industrialized cities – one overarching thing became clear. There is a powerful, nearly overwhelming, love of country here in the heartland, transcending all else. A quick look at the news, and the verses nearly wrote themselves.

Read the lyrics of the song, along with the lyricist’s thoughts about the song. Understand the meaning and the depth of the song by reading the lyricist’s motivations for writing it. In Contessa of the Willows the singer explores the stressed relationship he has with a woman who constantly seeks to find sadness in her otherwise happy circumstances. He loves her greatly, but …. read on

Our first new song this week is “Jesus & the Budda” by Entrance. The band Entrance is comprised of Jeff Stafford, Lee Dalson, Papa Boyd’O, Anastasia Shields and Ward Kelley. Their vision is to create and explore non-commercial rock platforms while drawing from the poetry of Ward Kelley. Their scope includes rock, psychedelia, folk, blues, and even a little classical.

The song is a tribute to Emily Dickenson, taking some of her public domain poetry and adding original lyrics. The singer concludes Emily changed his life by teaching him to see things in a much different way.

The Wild Mouse Song: The singer imagines the boundary between life and death as an amusement park ride, then conjectures communicating with ‘little dead souls.’

A Wild Mouse roller coaster (also Mad Mouse or Crazy Mouse) is a type of roller coaster characterized by small cars that seat four people or fewer and ride on top of the track, taking tight, flat turns (without banking) at modest speeds, yet producing high lateral G-forces. The track work is characterized by many turns and bunny hops, the latter producing abrupt negative vertical G forces.

The Gypsy’s Daughter Enters the Third Reich Synopsis

Sometimes overlooked in discussions of the Holocaust are the conditions of the Gypsies, or Roma, who were subjected to the same attempt at genocide by the Nazi. Over 200,000 Gypsies lost their lives in the Holocaust. This song is the story of a Gypsy father and his nine year old daughter, as they are led towards the ovens in Auschwitz. The lyricist, the poet Ward Kelley, says, “these lyrics came from the saddest poem I ever published, but I thought it important the story of this small family was told. The poem, named the same as the song, was later nominated for the Pushcart award, and became one of my most reprinted poems. Still, I must admit, it’s difficult for me to read or contemplate this story.”

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The Gypsy’s Daughter Enters the Third Reich Lyrics

(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)
Verse 1
In this heartless dry air, she’s so brave,
her eyes say it’s me she just forgave,
her nose flexes from the arid scent,
they mean to kill us, they won’t relent,
to kill a child, it’s most deprave,
in this heartless dry air, she’s so brave,

Chorus
Nothing I can do,
I know we’re through,
wish I knew
what to do.

Verse 2
God, this dark world, such volumes of hate
her life must be exchanged to equate
this Nazi formula: lives for greed,
I can only hold her hand, a feckless deed,
And on my lungs, a relentless weight
in this dark world, such volumes of hate.
Instrumental

Chorus
Nothing I can do,
I know we’re through,
wish I knew
what to do.

Ending

And so I lift her little finger
with my callused hand,
a humble wave goodbye
to our sinful world,

and I pray this is the proper response
to this horror . . .
to meet it bravely
with the smallest act of beauty.

Chorus
Nothing I can do,
I know we’re through,
wish I knew
what to do.

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The purest form of love requires stripping away all inhibitions and defenses, and loving courageously, without restriction. Indeed loving with a pure faith your lover will reciprocate just as purely. The singer in this song advises to “strip it all away” and “love without a say,” using the analogy of a high tides eroding all the lover’s defenses.

High Tide of Love

Music by Don Whitaker
Lyrics by Ward Kelley

(Whitaker/Kelley 2016)

Verse 1
The high tide of love erodes the sand monolith
of your life, decodes, easing flecks of sand from you,
truth slices, implodes, in seas of pranks and myth,
while my arms enfold . . . sends the best back to you.

Chorus
Love means stripping it all away.
Love means trusting without a say,
lay yourself down, you’ll see our way,
when I lay down too, at the end of our day.

Verse 2
The seas reveal a sharp, crystalline door,
modern art, conceals, a shapely, expensive soul,
shining, it deals in a much more refining cure,
your soul appeals, it knows love makes searches into wholes.

Chorus
Love means stripping it all away.
Love means trusting without a say,
lay yourself down, you’ll see our way,
when I lay down too, at the end of our day.

Bridge
I feel your body rock in lovemaking,
arched, a cello pulsing, making
a promise how you’ll not be taking
more love than what you are waking.

Instrumental

Chorus
Love means stripping it all away.
Love means trusting without a say,
lay yourself down, you’ll see our way,
when I lay down too, at the end of our day.

Repeat Bridge
I feel your body rock in lovemaking,
arched, a cello pulsing, making
a promise how you’ll not be taking
more love than what you are waking.

Love Quotes

Life has taught us that love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy. ~ George Jean Nathan

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. ~ Oscar Wilde

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul. ~ Judy Garland

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet. ~ Plato

All love shifts and changes. I don’t know if you can be wholeheartedly in love all the time. ~ Julie Andrews

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words. ~ William Shakespeare

I can live without money, but I cannot live without love. ~ Judy Garland

This song is a rendition of a father’s love for his daughters. Every father of an adult daughter – at some point – gets a phone call late at night from the daughter who got herself in a bad situation, and desperately needs the father to come help her. The father in the song runs to his truck and drives into the night to help his daughter, thinking about his relationship with her, and concluding ‘there is nothing better than a daughter.’

The song is set in 5th century BCE Greece, where a landowner learns the Persian invader Xerxes is nearing his property with a large, murderous army. He quickly sends his wife, children, brother and slaves to the safety of the shore, and resolves to make a suicidal stand with his small guard of mercenaries. The night before the battle, he stands, during a thunderstorm, in the small temple he built on his property, contemplating his gods – why does a man decide to stand and fight, when the very gods have fled this place?

Lyrics Artist’s note:
Xerxes I (circa 519 – 465 BCE), was a king of Persia. To punish the Greeks for their victory over the Persians at Marathon in 490 BCE, he invaded Greece, his vast army penetrating to Thrace, Thessaly, and Locris. Three hundred Spartans made a courageous but suicidal stand at Thermopylae; after ten days Xerxes broke through, and eventually burned Athens. Returning to Asia, Xerxes so disgusted his subjects with his debauchery that he was at last murdered by the captain of his own palace guard.

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Artist’s note:
Xerxes I (circa 519 – 465 BCE), was a king of Persia. To punish the Greeks for their victory over the Persians at Marathon in 490 BCE, he invaded Greece, his vast army penetrating to Thrace, Thessaly, and Locris. Three hundred Spartans made a courageous but suicidal stand at Thermopylae; after ten days Xerxes broke through, and eventually burned Athens. Returning to Asia, Xerxes so disgusted his subjects with his debauchery that he was at last murdered by the captain of his own palace guard.

A Temple in the Path of Xerxes Poem from History of Souls by Ward Kelley.